{"id":515476,"date":"2026-09-14T15:12:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=515476"},"modified":"2026-09-14T15:12:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T13:12:57","slug":"massimo-zanetti-virtus-bologna-is-the-most-iconic-basketball-club-in-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/massimo-zanetti-virtus-bologna-is-the-most-iconic-basketball-club-in-italy\/","title":{"rendered":"Massimo Zanetti: \u201cVirtus Bologna is the most iconic basketball club in Italy\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"flex max-w-full flex-col gap-4 grow\">\n<div class=\"min-h-8 text-message relative flex w-full flex-col items-end gap-2 text-start break-words whitespace-normal outline-none keyboard-focused:focus-ring [.text-message+&amp;]:mt-1\" dir=\"auto\" tabindex=\"0\" data-message-author-role=\"assistant\" data-message-id=\"6e83a1a3-a93c-452f-99c0-8532b30c76aa\" data-message-model-slug=\"gpt-5-6\" data-turn-start-message=\"true\">\n<div class=\"flex w-full flex-col gap-1 empty:hidden\">\n<div class=\"markdown prose dark:prose-invert wrap-break-word w-full light markdown-new-styling\">\n<h2 class=\"PDq2pG_selectionAnchorContainer\" data-section-id=\"g6t3t9\" data-start=\"202\" data-end=\"232\">\u201cIt is an incredible honor\u201d<\/h2>\n<p data-start=\"234\" data-end=\"441\"><strong data-start=\"234\" data-end=\"278\">Virtus Bologna president Massimo Zanetti<\/strong> spoke passionately about the club during Sunday\u2019s presentation of <strong data-start=\"345\" data-end=\"381\">Costa Crociere\u2019s new sponsorship<\/strong>, highlighting the personal significance of the partnership.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"443\" data-end=\"626\">\u201cFor me, it is an incredible honor to combine the Virtus name with the Costa name,\u201d Zanetti said, before explaining his personal and family connection with the Italian cruise company.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"628\" data-end=\"814\">\u201cMost likely, my grandfather and my father shipped coffee on the Costa fleet when it was still operating as a multipurpose fleet. So it is something that is very much part of my family\u201d.<\/p>\n<h2 data-section-id=\"yrtodr\" data-start=\"816\" data-end=\"850\">\u201cThe most iconic club in Italy\u201d<\/h2>\n<p data-start=\"852\" data-end=\"934\">Zanetti then made a strong statement about Virtus\u2019 position in Italian basketball.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"936\" data-end=\"1184\">\u201cI say that <strong data-start=\"948\" data-end=\"1068\">it is the most iconic club in Italy, the most important one, the best-known Italian basketball team around the world<\/strong>. We have won two EuroLeagues, and we have the largest fan base according to a survey by <em data-start=\"1157\" data-end=\"1182\">La Gazzetta dello Sport<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1186\" data-end=\"1275\">The Virtus president then compared the club\u2019s popularity with that of <strong data-start=\"1256\" data-end=\"1274\">Olimpia Milano<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1277\" data-end=\"1356\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\">\u201cI\u2019ll give you the example of Olimpia Milano: <strong data-start=\"1323\" data-end=\"1354\">they have only 350,000 fans<\/strong>\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"z-0 flex min-h-[46px] justify-start\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"pointer-events-none -mb-px h-px w-full opacity-0\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Virtus president praised the club\u2019s history and popularity during the presentation of the new Costa sponsorship<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":493869,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[199,259],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[187],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-515476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-euroleague","category-serie-a","typology-video"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/04\/Massimo-Zanetti-.jpg","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515476"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=515476"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=515476"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=515476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}